


halcyon

by effie214



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effie214/pseuds/effie214
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d left the role of the Doctor to pursue anything and everything, to spread his wings, and here he was, deciding to go back to the most trusted, familiar thing in his life. He is Icarus and she Daedalus, and he’s chasing oblivion far too close to the sun, but he can’t not try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	halcyon

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Australian adventure by fulldeadotp on tumblr.

 

She’s sitting at his mother’s kitchen table having a cuppa when the publicity people call to pitch him the idea of an Australian adventure — a farewell tour, for lack of a better term, and the inspired idea of having Karen come with him rolls of his tongue as effortlessly as the steam wafting from the mug she holds in her hands.

She stops talking to his mum mid-sentence, head whipping around to look at him. The shocked,  _what_  exactly do _you think you’re playing at, Smithers,_  expression on her face doesn’t register in his mind; instead, it’s the little gold flecks in her eyes as they light up in uninvited but still unabashed enthusiasm that tell him this is indeed a genius plan. 

Everything speeds up as they hit that second star to the right, that restart they didn’t know they so desperately wanted, and he hears the publicity team murmuring excitedly to themselves on the other end of the conference call. Their chatter mixes warmly with his mother’s own words, sentiments of   _it’ll be lovely for you two to get to spend some time together_  and an unintentionally funny two-minute educational tangent on why koala bears aren’t actually bears but instead marsupials settling a comfortable and surprisingly complete sense of contentment in his belly. Karen keeps glancing between Lynne and him, saying nothing. She’s smiling now, but there’s still something in her expression he can’t quite place. It feels deep but not necessarily dangerous; the low hum that vibrates between them is in tune, moments in megahertz, and the rocking motion is soothing, encouraging.

He should pay it more mind, he knows, but she is the best mistake he could ever make, and there’s a part of him that hopes he never learns.

She heads back to LA after they finish filming his final episode, and there’s an impatience in his foot with every step he takes through the holidays and January as the days slip slowly by on winter wings. He doesn’t sleep on the plane from Heathrow to LAX; doesn’t breathe deeply or freely until he sees her on the other side of the International Arrivals area. A thrill runs through him when he sees her, and he expects part of that; he’s found that she feels like his missing puzzle piece, the last little bit that clicks everything into place for him, but as he grins and strides toward her, he realizes his large steps have a different cadence to them now. There’s a different kind of surety there; it feels louder, his heart a bass line rhythmically counting out the space between.

He gathers her in a huge hug, letting his suitcase teeter perilously on one wheel, and as he breathes her in — she smells of sunshine and sandalwood and _Karenness —_ he realizes what’s changed. There’s no longer a question to be asked; instead, it is an answer: everything he’s traveled many the miles to find has been right in front of him all this time. 

Her shaky exhale through the half-smile that’s pressed into the crook of his neck feels like freedom.

Like home.

The clock resets to zero.

They spend a few days in LA, walking down the Santa Monica Pier or kicking waves at each other in a surf whose cold temperature they don’t feel thanks to the warmth of being together, the burn of her hand in his as they walk the beach. They lounge in her apartment, sprawled out across each other as they watch television, interwoven in limbs as they have been in lives for so long. It becomes harder and harder to say goodnight and retreat to separate bedrooms, to pretend not to notice the way his eyes always seem to follow her, a signal calling out for his satellite despite not knowing what words to say.

They leave on a red-eye, snuggling in to adjoining seats that recline into full beds, and about an hour into the flight, he sees brightly colored nails adjust the partition between them. And then slowly and suddenly and all at once, her fingers are threading through his as they rest on his thigh. Her eyes never leave her movie screen and his never leave her profile; she’s his default setting, the one place to which he is compelled to return.

They fall asleep like that, Karen turning on her side as much as she’s able to face him, and the world goes very still and very quiet, a halcyon day in the making.

The first, he hopes, of many.

They’re ushered to their hotel and though they both want to climb in bed and sleep the day away — the steam and sinewy New York skyline is forever the frame to the mental image of her that he keeps — they go on a little sightseeing tour around Sydney Harbour. The water sparkles around them — there’s a Rihanna joke in there somewhere, but he can’t stop staring at her and wondering at the fact that they’re tens of thousands of miles away from home and yet they’ve never been closer — and it’s blinded only by her laugh at something the BBC handler says. 

He’d left the role of the Doctor to pursue anything and everything, to spread his wings, and here he was, deciding to go back to the most trusted, familiar thing in his life. He is Icarus and she Daedalus, and he’s chasing oblivion far too close to the sun, but he can’t not try.

She feels his gaze on him again and turns silently, quirking one brow in questioning. He answers by joining her at the end of the small craft and settling his hand at the small of her back. He slides against her gently and she instinctively curls into him. It’s a quiet moment in a relationship fraught with decibels, and yet he doesn’t think anything else could explain his feelings as clearly. 

He knows his message is received as clear as the day around them when she steps off the boat and onto the dock and presses a lingering kiss to the side of his mouth. He reads the confirmation in her heated eyes, feels the promise as her hand slides across his back dangerously near the hem of his t-shirt, and he’s just really, really glad they have adjoining rooms at the hotel. 

Before they can return there, though, there’s a small meet-and-greet with fans in a restaurant in Darling Harbour that night, and he knows he’s supposed to be professional, supposed to enjoy his last official hurrah as the doctor, and yet his heart is lightest because this thing that had been brewing between them for so long is finally here. Or maybe it’s always been there, and he’d just had to know where to look. 

He tastes white wine on her tongue that night, years of waiting written into the skin at her wrist and words as yet unsaid but not to remain silent for long on the crown of her head as she falls asleep in his arms. 

She answers the phone when his mum calls to check on them in the morning, and as he watches her pull his discarded shirt from the night before over her shoulders, he lies contentedly back and thinks this is the best decision he’s ever made. 


End file.
